ACE's 'The Presidency" Magazine

To read complete articles from The Presidency magazine, from the American Council on Education, you must be a subscriber. However, ACE publishes a complete Table of Contents for each issue with lengthy excerpts from the articles.

From the Fall 2009 issue - Volume 12, Number 3 - the following excerpts are available: A New Morrill Act: Higher Education Anchors the 'Remaking of America' by Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University; Connecting with Today's Students by Graham B. Spanier, The Pennsylvania State University; The Enterprise of the Future by Dennis J. Murray, Marist College; How Boards Go Wrong - And Right: Observations on the Search and Selection of College Presidents by Rebecca A. Denton and John E. Moore, Jr., Drury University; and Career Paths: Presidential Hiring by Harry L. Peterson, Western State College of Colorado.

Strategic Planning in Higher Education: Comparative Perspectives in Evaluation

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Strategic Planning in Higher Education: Comparative Perspectives in Evaluation by Margaret Dalrymple. "Exemplar characteristics . . . result an evaluation methodology that a higher education institution can apply to its strategic plan initiative and . . . provide academic practitioners with a comprehensive tool with which to evaluate their own institutions' strategic plans."

New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities

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New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities by William G. Tierney and Guilbert C. Hentschke. "[The authors] provide a reasonably thorough introduction to and analysis of that portion of the for-profit sector of greatest interest to most planners—large university systems that are regionally accredited degree-granting institutions owned and operated by publicly traded for-profit corporations." Reviewed in Planning for Higher Education by Carol Everly Floyd.

Tossing Out the Baby with the Bathwater

Council of Independent Colleges president Richard Ekman explains why he thinks that the current financial crisis could lead to some short-sighted planning decisions by colleges and universities:

"For students, institutional belt-tightening has led to important educational opportunities . . . . Colleges need to be deliberate about whether these changes should be touted as short-term or long-term fixes. . . . In this environment, an even more extreme possibility is that students will not value the serious study of any field when the premise of college-going has been contradicted by recent experience."

Read the full article here:
http://universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1312

Let the Conversation Begin: How Do We Deal With a Rogue Trustee?

This Leadership Abstract from the League for Innovation by Terry O'Banion, is a prelude to his forthcoming new book, The Rogue Trustee: The Elephant In the Room. We're looking forward to reviewing it for SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education.

Rogue trustees run roughshod over the norms and standards of behavior expected of public officials appointed or elected to office. They tend to trample over the ideas and cautions of the CEO, the trustee chair, and member trustees. They place their own interests over the interests of the college. They violate written and unwritten codes of conduct. They often make inappropriate alliances with faculty, staff, and other trustees. They recommend and support policies that are not in the best interests of the institution. They consume an inordinate amount of staff and meeting time. They know how to get attention, to appeal to the base elements in others, and to manipulate individuals and situations to their advantage. Most rogue trustees are quite bright and articulate; some are mentally unbalanced. They are sometimes loners, exiled from the herd, but they also create alliances with others to carry out their agenda. They are high maintenance. They tend to poison the culture of the college instead of helping to create a sense of community, collaboration, innovation, and common values. They become the catalyst for increased defensiveness, paranoia, subterfuge, and fear. In short, they cause enormous damage. The rogue trustee is the elephant in the room, creating an ever-widening circle of frustration and destruction for anything in its path.